Tom Paris - awesome or vastly underused?

[Collingwood Nick]

Tom's developed from a ne'er-do-well vagabond to a responsible husband and father. Good on him, we should all be so lucky. I still reckon he's awesome. Yes some of the writing was bad and the development a little predictable but the same could be said of every other character as well. It's just a feature of star trek (Enterprise being the notable exception)

[teacake]

Collingwood Nick wrote:

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Tom's developed from a ne'er-do-well vagabond to a responsible husband and father. Good on him, we should all be so lucky. I still reckon he's awesome.

This is like how Collingwood Nick developed from a wannabe bad boy poster whose threads got closed into a responsible and amusing contributor to our little VOY community.

[Collingwood Nick]

Aw, thanks teacake.

I can't deny my inner Voyager nerd any more

[teacake]

btw Nick JBHiFi is having a Buy 2 get the 3rd free deal on tv series and ALL of Trek is included. Not only that but they have all been reduced to between 20 and 24 dollars a season.

Too bad I own it all already and I tried not to cry at the sight of BSG reduced after forking out so much last month for it. Oh well, did buy some Stargate. I did buy quite a bit of VOY for presents however

[Camren]

I thought it was ridiculous that he was practically a backup the Doctor. Who are they kidding? Tom Paris performing a life-saving operation, please. They should have replaced Kes with a advanced holographic nurse/medic, not dump Paris in sick bay because he had so little to do at the helm.

[Guy Gardener]

they didn't need a nurse or Tom, they just had to make the Doctor telekenetic.

Thousands (millions?) of forcefield projector in the room picking shit up for him but only when it makes sense because the Hologram is attempting to pick something up?

The attempt to overhumanize his program restricted his abilities to commit medicine like a god.

[Gov Kodos]

Yeah, the writers kept confusing the projection with the computer generating it. One of the most eye rolling was the episode with the Cardassian doctor Mengele. The same computer is holding the data, running the programs, and generating the holograms. It boils down to the computer arguing with itself.

[PopBoy]

Okay, i liked Voyager and i think i woulda liked the idea of Tom Paris but i wasnt so fond of his acting. It seemed very trashy soap opera. For me, i felt some actors in the show were acting. You could almost taste the print of the script. Robert was one of them.

[Collingwood Nick]

Gov Kodos wrote:

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Yeah, the writers kept confusing the projection with the computer generating it. One of the most eye rolling was the episode with the Cardassian doctor Mengele. The same computer is holding the data, running the programs, and generating the holograms. It boils down to the computer arguing with itself.

Nah. Don't confuse the hardware with the software. Two AI 'hologram programs' running on the same Pc can be made to argue.

[Gov Kodos]

Collingwood Nick wrote:

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Nah. Don't confuse the hardware with the software. Two AI 'hologram programs' running on the same Pc can be made to argue.

True, but why should they? Why not just have the Doc program just access the relevant data? The argument seems ridiculous, apart from it serving the drama of the episode. And the computer software arguing with itself.

[Guy Gardener]

It happened.

The doctor extracted a Cardassian from his program so that he could argue with himself without seeming batshit.

It's just a question of why the Doctor must has asked for the Cardassian to be deleted from his database when the partition as created to actualize him as a distinct personality, in so that he could only work with his other face while inside an air of ignorance.

[exodus]

Camren wrote:

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I thought it was ridiculous that he was practically a backup the Doctor. Who are they kidding? Tom Paris performing a life-saving operation, please. They should have replaced Kes with a advanced holographic nurse/medic, not dump Paris in sick bay because he had so little to do at the helm.

As I understood it, field medics are basically equal to an EMT.
I don't believe they're trained or skilled in surgery.
If Tom or Kes were skilled at surgery, then we never would of had the dilemma the EMH had in "Latent Image" due to there being only him with the knowledge and ability to perform surgery.

[Guy Gardener]

A nurse today has more medical training/knowledge than a doctor in the 19th century.

A 24th century nurse would mostly likely have more medical training/knowledge than a doctor in the 20th century.

[exodus]

Guy Gardener wrote:

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A nurse today has more medical training/knowledge than a doctor in the 19th century.

A 24th century nurse would mostly likely have more medical training/knowledge than a doctor in the 20th century.

But the fact still holds true that not all medical doctors are trained surgeons.
Even a comedy like SCRUBS made us aware there's a difference in skill between a medical doctor and a surgeon. Even in our time it depends on the doctor's area of study, if he's trained in surgery or not. Even if Tom and Kes had the knowledge of a 20th century medical doctor, they'd still be giving you a referral to a surgeon if you required it.

If Tom or Kes had the skill of surgeon the dilemma in "Latent Image" wouldn't have happened. There would have been 3 people on the ship capable of performing the operation. Instead Tom stood by helpless as he watched the EMH make his choice on who to save.

[Guy Gardener]

That makes perfect sense, but what was the plan in Virtuoso?

"Go be a big star, we'll be fine without you."